Let’s suppose that this morning you noticed that there was a mere thimbleful of milk left in the refrigerator . . . and that you decide that after Church you will go to a grocery store to get more milk (and perhaps pick up a few other things you know you’ll need).  So, after hearing the Word of God, making fervent prayer for yourself and others; receiving the Blessed Sacrament and God’s blessing . . . you get into your car and drive from here (All Saints’ Chapel) to the supermarket in Morris.  As you are about to turn into the parking lot, another car whizzes out of nowhere and cuts you off in order to get into the parking lot ahead of you.  You follow behind, but the car that just cut you off suddenly stops to let another motorist back out of a parking space near the door, and you wind up half in the lot and still half in the street while the street traffic is blowing horns at you.  . . . What are you thinking as you sit there in your car?  . . . What are you thinking about the guy in front of you, who cut you off and now won’t let you into the parking lot?  … What are you thinking about the guy blowing his horn?  . . . Finally, the parking issue gets sorted out, and you go into the grocery store only to discover that the air conditioning is broken and that the inside temperature feels somewhere near 100 degrees.  But you swim through the humidity and wade through some lady’s obnoxious kids wildly running through the aisles to their own peril as well as the peril of everyone else, and you get your milk, some zucchini and peppers, and a loaf of bread, and you make it to the check-out, dripping sweat but managing to keep your temper, . . . and who should be in front of you at the check-out but the lady with the obnoxious kids, who are still undulating like a sea of maggots, . . . and you watch the lady pay for a six-pack of soda, two bags of chips, and a bag of candy with food stamps!  . . . And then you watch her take her change and some other change she’s accumulated . . . and she buys a pack of cigarettes.  . . . What do you think about all that as you watch it happen?  . . . Well, you make it out of the store without fainting from the heat or strangling the maggots and their mother . . . and you go home with your milk.  But when you gather up your purchases and shut the car door . . . you shut it right on your finger.  . . . What is the first word you say as the pain runs up your arm?

    Well, that’s what the Gospel Lesson appointed for today is about.  Jesus tells His disciples to get into their boat and make a trip from the western shore to the northern tip of the Sea of Galilee.  But what was expected to be rather like an ordinary and simple trip to the grocery store . . . turns out to be more than the disciples expected.  The headwind which arises and buffets that small craft is, for the disciples, what inconsiderate drivers, obnoxious kids, and self-absorbed, incapable parents might be for us.  It makes the going very difficult and extremely trying, compounded by the fact that the water spray leaves the disciples wet and uncomfortable . . . and perhaps more than a little cranky.  . . . And then here comes this unexpected thing.  Here comes this mysterious, dark shape where there shouldn’t be mysterious, dark shapes.  Here comes this mysterious, dark shape looking as if it’s walking across the waters.  . . . I’ll bet the disciples, when they saw it, said what you said when you slammed the car door on your finger.

    And, you see, . . . Saint Mark’s point is this:  here come the disciples fresh from a miracle.  They have just seen Jesus feed five thousand people with five loaves and two fish!  Here come the disciples, fresh from a miracle and sent by Jesus; they are sent by Jesus to go ahead of Him up the length of the lake; they are sent as disciples and servants of Christ . . . they are sent as disciples and servants of Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God:  Jesus Christ who heals the sick, raises the dead, casts out demons; who is light and peace and sanity.  . . . But when Jesus comes to them walking across the waters . . . all the disciples can think of is ghosts and bogeymen.  All they can do is curse, . . . when Jesus has consecrated them to bless.  . . . What do you suppose has happened between Christ’s sending His disciples and His coming to them?  What do you suppose has happened to those cheerful disciples who started out for Bethsaida so bravely?  . . . Well, Saint Mark says that they set out without understanding, and that when things got difficult their hearts got hard . . . and they forgot about Jesus.  The disciples forget about Jesus to the extent that when He comes to them walking across the water, the miraculous power of His Presence becomes simply one more thing they cannot deal with; . . . one more thing to make them afraid.  . . . And, in this way, Saint Mark has given us an illustration of how a careless Christian Life can be; . . . how human life is . . . when it is lived without understanding.

    Because, you see, we go from here having said holy things and having made sacred promises; we go from here fresh from a miracle, having taken the very Body of Christ to ourselves; with the taste of His Sacred Life still upon our lips; . . . we are sent from here in the Name of Christ to go before Jesus and to manifest God’s blessings; to manifest God’s mercy, love, and peace to the world, . . . but we’re surprised by how hard the going can be, . . . and we become distracted; . . . we become distracted by rudeness, ignorance, discomfort, our own haughtiness, . . . and the genuine bloodshed of life.  . . . We become distracted . . . and it is as if Christmas had never happened.  We become so busy trying to make headway -- we become so occupied with the tasks -- . . . that we forget in Whose Name we are sent out into the world.  Even if it’s only something as simple as to get a little milk, Jesus becomes less important than surviving the journey.

    But . . . if you let Jesus into your boat, Mark says; . . . if you let Jesus into your boat, . . . the wind will cease.  By which Saint Mark means not that the wind will cease to blow, . . . but that it will cease to have power over you; . . . that the circumstances of your life will cease to define your life.  Allow Jesus into your boat . . . and your focus changes.  Allow Jesus into your boat and your Christian Life will be as the Apostle speaks of it in his Epistle to the Ephesians:

[you are] no longer . . . children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the cunning of men, by their craftiness in deceitful wiles.  Rather, . . . we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ . . .

It was not this way for the disciples sailing to Bethsaida, Saint Mark says; . . . it was not this way for the disciples because their focus was upon the wind.  Their focus was upon the wind, the Evangelist says, because “their hearts were hardened” because “they did not understand about the loaves.”  And what they did not understand about the loaves was the sufficiency of the Life that is lavished upon us in Christ Jesus . . . so that

there is one body and one Spirit [there is one Life], . . . one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all.

    The wind blows because God permits it to blow.  But God is in the wind. God is in the wind, and if you always allow Jesus into your boat, He will help you to see your God Who is in the wind.  Moreover, because God is “above all and through all and in all”, . . . God is the boat in which you sail and God is the life which gives you strength to row, . . . and it is the presence of Christ in your life which grants you the grace to rely upon your God.  And because of this, Christ will be the cause for you to bless even the wind; . . . bless and not curse.  . . . But you cannot be careless.  You must understand about the loaves; . . . you must understand about the bread you receive today . . . that it is a miracle which permeates your life.  You must allow Jesus a place in your boat, . . . you must allow a place for the Lord of the wind and of the sea and of the sky.  You must allow a place for Jesus in your boat . . . and continually pray as the Sixth Century Celtic monk, Saint Columba, prayed:

My dearest Lord,
Be Thou a friendly shore before my bow;
Be Thou a glassy sea beneath my keel;
Be Thou a wise steersman at my stern
Today and evermore.
. . . My dearest Lord,
Let me not forget that I sail in Thy Name
To go before Thee
With God’s grace,
And by the same
Be met by Thee at journey’s end.